In Kamdesh, Nuristan, where U.S. forces withdrew more than a decade ago, the American presence is a distant – and negative – memory for many locals. In the dead of night on August 30, 2021, the last U.S. forces stepped off the tarmac of Kabul Airport onto a plane and left Afghanistan. It was almost 20 years after the first […]

Inside the 25-foot-high, barbed-wire-topped walls of Pul-e-Charkhi prison, a thin line divides the Taliban of the past and what the militants claim they have become. To Afghanistan’s new rulers, the inmates are evidence of their ability to effectively police the capital in a law-abiding manner. But on a recent day, when scores of prisoners gathered outside their cells to soak […]

The Taliban have promised plots of land to relatives of suicide bombers who attacked U.S. and Afghan soldiers, in a provocative gesture that seems to run counter to their efforts to court international support. The Taliban’s acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, offered the reward to dozens of family members of bombers gathered at a Kabul hotel, Interior Ministry spokesman Saeed […]

The port of Chabahar—located on the Makran coast of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province, near to the Gulf of Oman and at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz—is the only Iranian port with direct access to the Indian Ocean. Thanks to its strategic position and links to north-south transit corridors, it has been termed the “Golden Gate” to landlocked […]

Even before the Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August, the country was facing a drought, the ravages of the COVID pandemic, and mass displacement driven by the conflict between the Taliban and the Afghan army, with civilian casualties reaching record levels. Under the now-collapsed, Western-backed government led by President Ashraf Ghani, 43% of Afghanistan’s GDP came from foreign aid, according […]

The United States’ chaotic departure from Afghanistan has left the region with mounting security questions and uncertain alliances as key countries take a cautious stance toward the new Taliban government, regional experts said in a recent online East-West Center discussion panel. Experts speaking in the “The New Geopolitics of Afghanistan” webinar predicted that Pakistan likely will be the only country […]

On October 8, a terrible blast struck the worshippers attending Friday noon prayers at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in the Khan Abad district of Bandar, the capital of Kunduz, one of Afghanistan’s largest cities in its northern belt. This is a mosque frequented by Shia Muslims, who were referred to as “our compatriots” by Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid. Forty-six people […]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the Islamic State (IS) militant group has thousands of fighters in northern Afghanistan, as Moscow prepares to host international talks next week on the situation in the country. “According to our intelligence, the number of (IS) members alone in northern Afghanistan is about 2,000 people,” Putin said on October 15 during a video address […]

China wants to invest billions of dollars in Afghanistan if the Taliban guarantee security for their workers and their assets. This, according to the Taliban’s acting Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Zabihullah Mujahid, who also said his government is ready to deliver. In a television interview with VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem in Kabul, Mujahid responded to questions about the Taliban’s […]